Well done, to Blue Origin. That big booster landed perfectly on the drone ship and two spacecraft deployed.

Two companies can land boosters on drone ships, now. And nobody can continue to say Blue Origin haven't obtained orbit.

Yes, that was very impressive 👍

As Darth Vader said...

 

SpaceX now have some much needed competition. Yes, SpaceX have landed boosters on barges many times with great precision and reliability, but never have they done that with such a huge booster.

SpaceX did of course catch a Starship booster with the chopstick arms, once, but Starship has yet to orbit. The caveat, of course, is that the payload capacity of Starship is three times that of New Glen. 

 

Edited November 15, 2025Nov 15 by martin-w

Watched the launch on Youtube this morning.  Pretty awesome.

Competition is good and will spur both companies to up their game.

Dave

4 hours ago, martin-w said:

Yes, SpaceX have landed boosters on barges many times with great precision and reliability, but never have they done that with such a huge booster. SpaceX did of course catch a Starship booster with the chopstick arms, once, but Starship has yet to orbit. The caveat, of course, is that the payload capacity of Starship is three times that of New Glen. 

I wonder whether that's a deliberate choice. For FH, it's probably simpler and with higher success probability to RTLS rather than going to a down range barge. If you don't need the extra capacity for the cargo then simpler is better.

Keep in mind that there's no reason Starship couldn't orbit beyond a very deliberate decision to test the heat shielding and re-entry performance. It's just a few seconds more engine burn.

Cheers

43 minutes ago, Luke said:

Keep in mind that there's no reason Starship couldn't orbit beyond a very deliberate decision to test the heat shielding and re-entry performance. It's just a few seconds more engine burn.

 

True, Luke.

Orbit is planned for next year with Starship V3. They'll be doing an orbital refueling demo, too. There's an aspirational goal to send 5 uncrewed Starships to Mars in late 2026, as well. That's "Elon Time" of course, so we shall see. 

 

43 minutes ago, Luke said:

I wonder whether that's a deliberate choice. For FH, it's probably simpler and with higher success probability to RTLS rather than going to a down range barge. If you don't need the extra capacity for the cargo then simpler is better.

 

I may have misunderstood, but there's been one Starship booster caught by the chopstick arms, the rest have been controlled landings, downrange, in the ocean. The plan is for them all to ultimately be caught by the arms to enable a rapid turnaround, but as they are test vehicles pushing the edge of the envelope, they didn't want to wreck the launch tower with  a failed attempt, so they simulated the landing and set down in the ocean. Starship will also be caught by the arms as testing progresses, I understand. 

Apologies if I've misunderstood. 

Edited November 15, 2025Nov 15 by martin-w

You didn’t misunderstand, I was thinking Falcon Heavy. My mistake.

cheers

 

The Starship super heavy booster has been caught three times by the launch tower "chopstick" mechanism (Flights 5, 7 and 8).

Edited November 16, 2025Nov 16 by Christopher Low

4 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

The Starship super heavy booster has been caught three times by the launch tower "chopstick" mechanism (Flights 5, 7 and 8).

 

Oh yes. 😉